In the age of constant cyberattacks and website crashes, WordPress website maintenance is no child’s play. Are you spending a lot of time and resources on your WordPress site maintenance? If not, then you don’t need to worry. However, if your answer is yes, then you should know that there are many reasons why your WordPress site could go down.
Next, let us look at why WordPress website maintenance is not an easy task.
Why WordPress website maintenance is not easy?
WordPress sites can go down because of a variety of reasons. This is what makes maintenance work more difficult. Here are some common reasons why WordPress sites go down:
- Incompatibility issuesIncompatibility between WordPress components is among the common reasons behind website crashes. For instance, you may have recently installed a new plugin, which is not compatible with the current WordPress version. Similarly, the latest WordPress version may not be compatible with older versions of WordPress plugins or themes.
There are also other issues like incompatibility with an older PHP version, which can arise when you update a WordPress plugin or theme.
- White screen of death The infamous “white screen of death” is among the most frustrating problems for WordPress users. This issue can be caused by multiple reasons like website changes, memory leaks, or most commonly, a plugin or theme update. A WordPress update is meant to improve website security – so it can be frustrating when updates cause your website to break.
- Overloaded database As you keep installing more plugins and themes, your WordPress database gets overloaded with the installed files and data. Even when you remove (or uninstall) a plugin, it does not completely clean every related content from the database. Hence, over time, your database is filled with unused data including media files and spam comments, which can eventually break your website.
Whatever be the reason, you can now reduce WordPress maintenance efforts through a proactive approach. Let’s see how in the next section.
How to Reduce WordPress Maintenance Effort
Most WordPress site users adopt a reactive approach toward WordPress maintenance. As more online businesses depend on their websites, then this approach is no longer practical. The reason is even a few hours of website downtime can severely damage your business revenues and frustrate your customers.
The need of the hour is to adopt a proactive approach toward website maintenance. The popular adage, “prevention is better than cure” applies to WordPress maintenance work. While unforeseen issues can still occur with a proactive WordPress maintenance mode, it can still resolve many problems before they occur.
Here are some proactive actions you can take that are easy to perform and can reduce your overall WordPress maintenance effort:
- Update your WordPress version regularly to the latest version.
- Update your installed WordPress plugins and themes to their latest version (if available).
- Remove or uninstall unused plugins and themes.
- Take regular backups of your WordPress website and database.
- Secure your WordPress site from hackers with a WordPress security plugin.
- Install and use only high-quality plugins and themes from trusted sources.
- Host your WordPress site only on high-quality WordPress hosting platforms.
If you are unable to perform these tasks, then it is time to hire professional services that know how to maintain a WordPress website.
How Hiring a WordPress maintenance professional can help
WordPress maintenance professionals (or companies) are trained to keep WordPress sites up and running and prevent any downtime. Here are some of the services that they offer to their customers:
- Testing the latest WordPress version (along with the latest plugins and themes) before installing them on your website.
- Performing regular backups of your website files and database tables.
- Performing security-related tasks like installing security plugins, and firewalls, and monitoring any website breaches.
- Scanning and removing any malware infections before they can compromise your website.
- Optimizing website files and databases to improve website speed and performance.
- Providing 24/7 customer support that is useful during emergencies.
Before choosing the right maintenance professional for your website, here are some questions that you should answer:
- What essential services do they include in their maintenance plans?
- What are the additional maintenance-related services that they can provide?
- Are they experienced in the WordPress maintenance domain?
- How soon can they respond in the event of any security breach?
- Are there any hidden costs in their maintenance plans?
Conclusion
As an online business owner, you want to focus all your time and resources on building your business and customer base. At the same time, you want to ensure continuous uptime of your WordPress website such that there is no untoward incident that can bring your website down.
Hiring the services of a professional WordPress expert can help you focus on your business, while they take care of your website. As a professional WordPress company, Flipper Code has the necessary expertise to maintain your WordPress site. Our maintenance-related services include bug fixes, website migration, and speed optimization. Here is a recent blog that talks about how to check if a WordPress plugin is safe for your website.
Do you want to reduce your WordPress website maintenance work? Yes, then contact us today.
